


find your way in any given storm

by daceydayne (theslymoon)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Adjacent, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Consecuted Caleb Widogast, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but not really in a relationship way, caleb's scars, canon typical angst, canon typical trauma, follows canon through episode 62, if caleb's scars are too close to triggering for u, in a mostly canon compliant sort of way, its not that graphic but also, platonic widojest rights !, there are detailed tws in the authors note, u might not wanna read this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22285006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theslymoon/pseuds/daceydayne
Summary: The only time his soulmark is on full display is when it is Bren’s turn to sit crying Ikithon’s lab. In some twisted, cruel mercy, Ikithon leaves Essek’s name alone. The scars leave a horrible twisted border around the soulmark, thorned like brambles, an ugly reminder on Bren’s arm:You have the potential to be a traitor written on your skin, and you must spend every breath proving your loyalty to me.But despite it all, there is hope in him. A hope small and cruel, a twisting knife as it mixes with shame and fear and disgust, but hope nonetheless, glowing like that little mote of light from his dream. Hope growing like a curling vine, clinging to his heart like it already knows the way. Like he has done this before.Or: the canon-adjacent shadowgast soulmates au.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 53
Kudos: 1075





	find your way in any given storm

**Author's Note:**

> _and I don't know if you've been hurt before_  
>  _And all the scars you bare are from a previous war_  
>  _But if it's fear of love that keeps you out of open arms_  
>  _Then I will leave the lights on any trail to come_  
>  _And you will find your way in any given storm_  
>  [cast away, coeur de pirate]
> 
> lmao i've been writing this fic since like october and im now like two episodes behind so this might deviate a little bit from but what can u do  
>  also i definitely wrote most of this before we met eodwulf/astrid and therefore their characterizations are p much just made up. also i think it might have been established that astrid was older than caleb? idk if it was i've elected to ignore it bc again this was already written lmao  
>  also this is the first fic ive actually finished enough to post in six years eyyyy shout out to adhd
> 
>  **Content Warnings:**  
>  I just wanna say that if Caleb’s arm scars are at all triggering for you, or if you think that exploration of them/more emphasis than canon on them might be triggering, you should probably give this fic a miss. in fact, if self-harm is at all triggering, you should know that there’s some self-harm (by slightly more peripheral characters, but still) in the early parts of this fic -- the harming itself is not on screen, but the immediate aftermath is. I’ve put asterisks around those to two instances of self-harm, but Caleb’s scars are mentioned far more than that. If you need any more information, feel free to send me a message on tumblr (widogays.tumblr.com) and I’ll do my best to answer as quickly as I can.

Like so many children on the eve of their sixteenth birthdays, Bren goes to bed restless, tossing and turning until the far off bells of Ioun’s temple ring the midnight hour. He sits up as they chime, breathless, and calls his dancing lights to float around his head, vibrating as if to mirror his own excitement. The name newly on his arm is written in precise strokes, Elven script in the darkest of purples, elegant if perhaps a bit more spidery than most of the Elven he has seen. _Essek Thelyss._

Bren traces his finger across his soulmark with a quiet reverence, mind racing. 

Eodwulf rolls over in the bed next to his, squinting in the brightness. “I know it’s exciting, Bren, but can you turn down the lights?” he grumbles in a low tone, jolting Bren from his quiet contemplation. 

“Sorry.” Bren gives the name one last glance before dismissing the lights with a wave of his hand. 

_Essek,_ he thinks. He’ll have to brush up on his Elven. 

He dreams of light, a spark in the distant darkness. It almost looks like his dancing lights. It draws nearer to him, swooping like a bird in joyous flight. When the light reaches him, it hovers before him for a moment. 

Bren stretches out a hand towards it, and it floats into his palm. It’s warm against his skin, pulsing for a moment with a gentle, unspeakable kindness. 

And then it rushes forward into his chest and he falls backward, a grey expanse before him, so vast and unknowable that it ought to frighten him, but it doesn’t. It’s comfortable, _comforting_ — like coming home. 

He awakes feeling… hopeful. A sweet dream on the night of his sixteenth can only be a good omen.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Ikithon pulls up the sleeve of his shirt first thing at breakfast that morning, fingers a little too tight around Bren’s wrist. 

Bren is used to flourishing under Ikithon’s attention, used to carrying himself with growing confidence as he succeeds at each new challenge. But this feels different, feels like a test he did not know he needed to pass as Ikithon inspects him, eyes sharp and analytical.

Once Ikithon sees the name, his grip relaxes a little, but his tone is dangerously calm, balanced on a razor edge. 

“Elven script, but in the style of Undercommon,” he muses. He jerks Bren’s sleeve cuff back into place with an uncomfortable abruptness. “Xhorhasian, certainly.” 

“Xhorhasian?” Bren echoes in hesitant shock. Astrid and Eodwulf are silently aghast across the breakfast table from him, but Bren’s eyes are focused on Ikithon, stricken. 

“Mm,” Ikithon affirms, nodding, “Kryn, I think. Crick.” 

Bren searches frantically through his lessons in his mind, and everything he recalls worries him. The Kryn of Xhorhas, the Cricks, loom ominous in his memory — chitinous amour, sweeping cruelty, and profane worship of false gods. The Enemy. 

“I don’t- I won’t- I am loyal to the Empire,” Bren stumbles frantically, “I am loyal to the Assembly.” 

Ikithon smiles, patronizing. “I know, my boy,” he says silkily, squeezing the soulmark through Bren’s sleeve. The scars on Bren’s arm ache dully. “I do not doubt you.” Ikithon’s voice is dangerously kind, and Bren shudders as Ikithon turns away. 

The worst part— The worst part is that Bren believes him. Believes that Ikithon trusts his fear, if not his loyalty. But Bren does not trust himself when faced with all the magic of a soulmate. He doubts the strength of his convictions and wonders if he’s the weakest link. 

From the way Astrid and Eodwulf watch him across the table, he suspects that they doubt him the same way. 

Word gets out. Bren doesn’t know quite how, but soon the others in his classes gossip behind his back in terrible whispers. Astrid and Eodwulf stay at his side, for they are all poor kids from a small township, brought up to be prodigies. But they suspect him. 

Bren knows they do, feels the glances they exchange behind his back when his hand finds its way absentmindedly to lay across the soulmark beneath his sleeve. 

There is little privacy in the dorms. Bren is used to this — he has been living in these school dorms since he arrived in Rexxentrum a year ago, and his parents were not wealthy people. He is used to sharing a room.

And in places with little privacy, the whispers follow. 

Worse than whispers, perhaps, is the book that finds its way under his pillow one day, which he discovers when retiring to bed. He reads the title quickly — _The Courting of the Crick_ — but stuffs it back under his pillow when he hears Eodwulf returning from the latrine. 

When the room has gone quiet but for sleep-slow breathing and the occasional snore, Bren pulls the book out from under his head and pulls his blankets over him, illuminating a single globule of light under the cover of his quilt. 

He isn’t sure what to make of the book as he speeds through it late into the night, though he knows it was meant as a slight, not a kindness. That it was meant to tease him with the cruelty of his soulmate’s people and tear him down — or perhaps threaten him — with the book’s conclusion that the Empire must take precedence over love, over the other half of one’s soul. 

But.

But there is hope in him. A hope small and cruel, a twisting knife as it mixes with shame and fear and disgust, but hope nonetheless, glowing like that little mote of light from his dream. Hope growing like a curling vine, clinging to his heart like it already knows the way. Like he has done this before. 

He finishes the book in just four hours, but he tosses and turns much later into the night, agitated and confused.

The disquiet fades as Bren continues to pour himself into his studies, flourishing and wilting in turn under Ikithon’s guidance, but always learning.

He does not look at the soulmark on his arm. It is a reminder of cruel things. He tries to ignore the sharpness of Ikithon’s gaze on him. 

That winter, Ikithon takes Bren and his Blumenthal compatriots to a small farm outside the city, a farm with a barn full of wicked implements that he shows them how to use. There, they become students of pain and torture. Bren learns both intimately. 

In the evenings, Ikithon pulls one of them into his study to press green crystals into their flesh, a practice brought along from Rexxentrum, while the other two sip quietly at his liquor cabinet and try to ignore the cries of pain coming from behind a closed door. 

The only time his soulmark is on full display is when it is Bren’s turn to sit crying in Ikithon’s lab. In some twisted, cruel mercy, Ikithon leaves Essek’s name alone. The scars leave a horrible jagged border around the soulmark, thorned like brambles, an ugly reminder on Bren’s arm: _You have the potential to be a traitor written on your skin, and you must spend every breath proving your loyalty to me._

Bren is the oldest of his year and the oldest of the three. Astrid is the next to turn sixteen, and Bren and Eodwulf sit cross-legged in her bed with her as midnight approaches and snow falls lightly outside. 

The name that scrawls across her forearm is not Elven like Bren’s. In broad strokes, scratched as if with a claw dipped in inky black, the soulmark reads _Swift Bubbling Creek of Bright Cliff_. The three frown over the name for a moment, searching their memories for some hint about her newly identified soulmate. 

Eventually, it’s Eodwulf who speaks up. “Isn’t Bright Cliff a Tabaxi clan?”

Astrid flushes red, and a moment later they all burst into laughter, collapsing against each other on a creaking bed in the midst of a dark winter. It is the brightest they have felt in some time. 

Ikithon frowns faintly when he sees the name the next morning, and then drops Astrid’s arm without comment. Bren doesn’t know whether to be jealous, relieved, or concerned. 

Astrid, inexplicably, looks disappointed.

Eodwulf’s birthday, a month and a half later, is more complicated. They’re back in the city and back at the Academy, so they have to forgo the quiet camaraderie of Astrid’s birthday, but Bren rolls over at midnight to watch as Eodwulf pinches a candle to life to inspect his arm. Eodwulf frowns as he reads the name. 

“Alright?” Bren asks quietly. 

Eodwulf doesn’t spare him a glance. “Yeah,” he says, voice quietly intense, “it’s fine.” 

Bren thinks he detects worry in Eodwulf’s voice, but the exchange is too abrupt. 

Eodwulf looks at his arm for only a moment longer before pulling down the sleeve of his sleep shirt, blowing out the candle, and returning to rest. 

Bren watches him for another long minute, then rolls over to go back to sleep. 

Astrid pulls up Eodwulf’s sleeve the moment she greets them at breakfast in the morning, and Bren too crowds to read the name. It’s in the same Undercommon-Elven script as his own soulmark, dark indigo in colour, but in sharper strokes than his own looping letters.

_Theron Dwendalos._

Ikithon is in front of them before they have any time to react, snatching up Eodwulf’s wrist before the cuff can be tugged back into place. 

Ikithon is more intense than he was with Bren and Astrid when he reads the name, going so still it’s almost a threat, a crouching tiger before the pounce. That the pounce doesn’t come is worse.

“Dwendalos,” he muses eventually, voice so thin it’s almost brittle, “Fascinating.”

“Dwendalos,” Astrid bites her lip, “like- like the king?” 

Ikithon meets her gaze for only a moment, before turning his eyes back to Eodwulf’s arm. “Like his enemies.” 

“I am loyal to the Empire,” Eodwulf says at once, echoing Bren’s own words from months ago. 

“I hope so,” Ikithon says, “For those of Dwendalos are some of the most dangerous of the Kryn.” His eyes are sharp as he speaks. “Tread carefully, Eodwulf. Some weaknesses must be cut out.” 

*

Eodwulf takes the warning seriously. Not a week later, Bren is awoken in the night by the sound of soft crying and the clatter of a knife hitting the ground. When he rolls over, he sees Eodwulf hunched over his arm, a dagger lying forgotten on the floor as he clutches at the wound in his flesh, blood dripping from the name on his skin.

Bren is on his feet in a second, rushing to Eodwulf’s side and pressing his own sleeve to the gash. “What are you doing?” He asks, voice hushed and low.

“Cutting out the weakness,” Eodwulf says through gritted teeth as tears stream down his face, “like Ikithon said.” 

Bren stills, and thinks of his own Kryn soulmate. The crystal scars surrounding it like a crown of thorns ache with phantom pain. “That was stupid,” Bren chokes out after too long, “What if you’d passed out?”

Eodwulf shrugs. “Didn’t think that far.”

“Obviously,” Bren bites, before going to fetch better first aid supplies. 

*

They do not speak of it again. Bren knows the secret beneath Eodwulf’s sleeve but says nothing. It would not do to worry Astrid, nor to remind her of this way in which, somehow, she is not as uniquely dangerous as them. 

In the months after all of their birthdays, Bren notices a change in them. Astrid works harder than ever, working to prove her worth with every breath. Eodwulf is more talkative with Ikithon, telling his truths over and over until there’s nothing left hidden in him.

And Bren… Bren rereads _Courting of the Crick_ twice. He thinks about passing it on to Eodwulf briefly, but he remembers the dagger and blood and the way the letters on Eodwulf’s skin are now little more than scar tissue, and he keeps it to himself. He works hard in classes and gets better at gritting his teeth silently when the crystals break his skin, but he hoards his own truths closer to his heart. He wonders if he too ought to carve the soulmark out of the last unscarred stretch of his forearm, wonders if Ikithon is waiting on him to break that skin first. He cannot bring himself to do it though. 

The dream with the small mote of light reoccurs — not frequently, but just often enough that Bren can’t forget it — and it stirs in him a cruel hope, a fondness for the partner of his soul who he has yet to meet. 

They grow, the three of them, and they learn. They become dangerous and ruthless and cruel, and they lean on each other with a codependency that’s almost concerning. Ikithon watches them with sharp eyes and guides them towards a future of fealty to the Empire, to the king, and to the Assembly, but first to him above all else.

Some lessons take easier than others.

In the spring of Bren’s seventeenth year, his parents burn and he descends into madness. 

He does not think of his Kryn soulmate for a long time.

The light still comes to him in dreams, but more often than not it lights a fire in him and he burns, frozen, with the screams of his parents in his ears. 

*

(In the time between the death of her parents and the death of his own, Astrid steals her father’s dagger and ruins her own soul mark. Bren will wonder, later in life, if he would have done the same in the wake of the fire had he not been in the middle of shattering to pieces.)

*

Some years later, he is restored, and he runs, frantic and desperate. 

There is little of his old life that he keeps. He discards his name, filtering through new aliases with little thought. He does not use his magic either, letting it fall dormant as he forgets the things he once knew. 

He spends too much time looking at books, almost unconsciously, unsure though he is what he is looking for. 

Months or maybe years later, he doesn’t know how many, having spent them all running, he makes a mistake. He doesn’t know what prompts him to slip the book on Undercommon into his coat, phantom pain shooting through his forearms as he does, but he is not as careful as he should be in his escape. 

It takes the guard long enough to catch him that he manages to get through nearly all of the book, but they still catch him. It is a small crime, but he is dirty and feral and his cat bites. 

In prison, he meets a goblin.

Things are better after that. Not good, but better. 

Nott never asks about his soulmark, wrapped as it is in the bandages around Caleb’s forearms. But then, he does not ask about the name hidden beneath her bandages either.

Under her curious eyes, Caleb returns to his magical roots.

At night, he recites Undercommon verb conjugations under his breath until he falls asleep. It comes easier to him than Common did. 

Their group gets bigger. Most of them hide the names on their wrists, but even with those who do not, Caleb cannot bring himself to care. Soulmarks are dangerous things to care about, in his experience. 

Some are louder than others — Jester has a fascination with soulmarks, but Caleb is not alone in his resistance to her prying, and she takes little notice of it.

In Zadash, Caleb sees a book he has not thought about in a long time. 

It takes all his resolve not to run when the little sweater-ed owner of the Chastity’s Nook presents it to him. This one is better bound than his old copy of _Courting of the Crick_ , but the text is the same. He takes it with shaking hands and flips through it only mindlessly, then babbles something about it being too rich for his blood and all but pushes it back into the shopkeeper’s arms. 

He picks up the closest book he can find and pays the woman quickly, making for the door only to lean against the outside of the building with his eyes closed tightly as he counts backward from ten in Zemnian, then again in Undercommon. Slowly, the panic begins to subside. His arms ache.

Jester and Beau find him moments later, both looking concerned. When Jester presents him with the book again as a gift, he almost cries. 

“Thank you,” he chokes, “Thank you but, uh- I have, I have already read it.”

Jester’s brow furrows. “Did you not like it?” 

He doesn’t know if he did. It was so weighted with disapproval and shame when he last read it, but it fostered a cruelly naive hope too, a hope now all but lost to age and time. “It was alright,” he says after a little too long. “Not worth rereading.”

Jester bites her lip. 

“I’ll read it,” Beau volunteers, reaching for the book.

Jester’s bounce is back. “Alright,” she says, “Tell me how it is!” 

Beau thumbs through the first few pages. “Sure, Jes.”

“Ja, alright then,” Caleb straightens his coat, “To the bakery?”

Caleb is shaken by the trip. He cannot quite say why, doesn’t understand it himself, but perhaps it is because it comes as a reminder of the soulmark he works hard to forget these days. Or perhaps it is an omen, looming in his mind. 

Against his better judgement, he borrows the book off Beau later that night. He speed-reads through it into the early morning hours, biting the inside of his cheek until it is raw. He feels like a teenager again, confused and scared and so prone to self-loathing. 

But then, that had never really changed. 

Then, they find the Beacon. 

Well, first they find the Crick. First, they _fight_ the Crick. 

When they come across the shadowy figure in the sewers, old whispers of chitinous armour and the dark elves -- brought back anew by that fucking book -- arise in the forefront of Caleb’s mind. 

The armoured figure speaks Undercommon, some kind of threat or warning, and it distantly occurs to Caleb that he’s never really heard the language spoken aloud before, not by a native speaker. For all that it comes to him easily on paper, in-person comprehension is a little more difficult. His hand moves to his component pouch instinctively, pulling out salt and soot and throwing it before him as he mutters the incantation for _Comprehend Languages_ because he’d rather be certain of what’s being said here. 

Of course, that’s when the Crick rushes forward.

When the fight is over, Caleb looks into the dodecahedron. It’s familiar, like his dreams, and like distant memories he can’t place. It frightens him as it overwhelms, taunting him past the point of his dreams. There’s a ledge, and he’s not willing to push past it, not yet. He pulls back.

But he thinks, for the second time that week and perhaps the second time that year, of his soulmate, mysterious and far away. 

He has soulmates on his mind when they uncover the drow and he cannot help but look curiously. He’s never seen a dark elf up close before. Jester is right — he is handsome. 

Caleb has soulmates on his mind, and maybe that is why he recognizes the name when the drow says it, but, then again, Caleb would be hard pressed to forget the sight from long ago of that same name criss-crossed with bleeding gashes. 

_Theron._ Eodwulf’s soulmate. “Theron Dwendalos?” Caleb asks, the question coming out unbidden as he remembers all the warning and sternness in Ikithon’s voice. The most dangerous of the Kryn indeed. 

Theron jolts, meeting his eyes for the first time. “Who are you?” He says, eyes more frantic than before. 

“Do you know the name Eodwulf?” Caleb presses, voice taking on that light but icy tone that Ikithon used when he was only a few questions away from trapping someone in a lie. 

The drow strains against his bonds, his whole body somehow even more tense than before. “How do you know that name?” Theron growls. 

Caleb blinks, too calm, as he settles back into the way he used to pull information from people, from his classmates, from his friends. Silently, he walks forward, catches the drow by the wrist, and wrenches the sleeve of his undershirt up. In Eodwulf’s messy printing, the name is lightly scrawled across the drow’s arm, faint scar tissue that has faded against the purple of his skin. The mark of a soulmate gone -- dead, usually, but sometimes just rejected. 

He lets the drow’s wrist fall. “Let’s leave him,” Caleb says to his companions, though his eyes do not leave the drow’s face. 

“Leave him?” Beau sounds displeased. 

Caleb ignores her, choosing instead to crouch down before the drow so he’s at eye level. “ _Don’t let the Cerberus Assembly take you alive_ ,” he warns in hushed Undercommon, “ _Eodwulf cut you from his arm long ago, and he will not hesitate to part you from this life as slowly and terribly as he knows how._ ”

The drow spits at his feet. “ _Do not pretend to know me and mine, I felt that bond cut from me long ago._ ” 

Caleb pats the drow’s cheek and stands. “ _Don’t say I didn’t warn you._ ” He turns to his companions. “I don’t care what happens to him,” Caleb says, “but if we leave him alive, give him the dodecahedron.”

In the end, Theron dies in the sewer at the hands of others, and they make off with the Beacon only through some luck and quick thinking. 

Sleeping beside it that night, Caleb dreams the same kind of dream he has had since he was sixteen, only this time the dodecahedron glows in his hands, a missing piece he had not known to miss. Before him, other versions of himself populate a great expanse, all different and yet the same. The stars light his way. It feels like possibility, and it feels like home. 

Later, in a bar beneath a bar, an unknown Tabaxi embraces Molly without warning. Caleb catches sight of a ruined soul mark on her forearm, where fur grows sparsely and scars leave the skin uneven. She says her name is Cree. Caleb thinks of Astrid, remembers the name on her forearm - _Swift Bubbling Creek of Bright Cliff_ \- and then dismisses it. There are more important things than the lost soulmates of his old friends. 

(He worries, though, that it might not all be a coincidence. _If his path has brought his old school mates’ soulmates to him, when will it bring him his own?_ He shudders at that and tries not to think about the way they all used to be interchangeable.)

Caleb sees Ikithon through Frumpkin’s eyes at a party some days later. His arms ache with old hurts. In his dreams, he burns and burns. 

They leave Zadash.

In a swamp, Nott shows him her soulmark. “Yeza was his name,” she says, slowly unwrapping her bandages as Kiri hops along beside them, “The halfling man. From before. I haven’t told anyone in a long time.” The name is written in messy script, _Yeza Brenatto_ , like a doctor’s prescription, and it looks almost foreign on her arm, so gentle in its simplicity.

Caleb is silent for a long time, just looking. Then: “We’ll find him. We’ll get you back to him.” 

“We don’t have to,” Nott says, dismissing it in that self-deprecating way of hers. 

“He is your soulmate,” Caleb asserts, “We’ll find him.”

“Alright,” Nott says, voice soft.

“He is your soulmate,” Kiri chirps beside them, tilting her head as she mimics Caleb’s Zemnian lilt. 

Life goes on. Their travels and adventures continue. They lose one of their number and gain another. There is ranging and seafaring, victory and loss. Caleb begins to open himself to these people, ever so slowly entrusting them with the darkest parts of his heart. 

When they get to Felderwin months later, Caleb’s heart nearly stops as he recognizes the name on the destroyed apothecary. 

The people of his own soulmate have destroyed the home of Nott’s. For a moment, he feels like it might be enough to drive him back into his old madness, but he pushes through it with gritted teeth, clutching his own soulmark as his scars ache. 

He throws himself into the search single-mindedly. 

It gets worse. 

When Nott accuses Caleb’s _people_ , says “It’s your people that have done this to my people--” Well. Caleb can hardly bear how right she is, and he unwraps his arm with too much haste, hand shaking till he tears at the bandages. Beau bats his hands away not a moment later and undoes them for him, slow and deliberate, like she’s waiting for him to tell her to stop. He doesn’t.

When his arm is bare, he holds it out, focusing on his own soulmark in a way he hasn’t looked in a long time. “It’s Kryn,” he croaks, “he’s one of them too.” 

The others are quiet for a long moment, then Caduceus speaks.

“We need to leave.”

“We need to go to Edith’s,” Nott says, agitated.

Mind gone blank with a swirling storm, Caleb follows.

Beside a river, their stories come out in stuttering bouts, Caleb hyperventilating all the while.

“My schoolmate,” he adds, almost an afterthought when the story is near done, “Eodwulf, his soulmate was Kryn too.” Caleb swallows heavily, the weight of it all pressing in on his chest, but everyone around him is watching him with eyes that are kinder than he deserves. 

“He cut it out,” Caleb continues, “his soulmark. Eodwulf… destroyed it, to prove his loyalty.” His hand rests over his soulmark, covered now by his sleeve but not the bandages.

“And you didn’t,” Jester says softly. 

“I was weak.” 

“You were strong,” Beau disagrees. “It’s not easy, standing up to authority. You were stronger than the others.”

Caleb shakes his head. 

“You were wise,” Caduceus adds in that low, calm tone of his. “You listened to what was inside you.”

Caleb lets out a choked laugh. “I should have listened better.”

Later, when they’re winding their way through never-ending tunnels, Jester sidles up to Caleb and remarks in that dreamy way of hers that Essek Thelyss is a nice name, a _romantic_ name. “Like Oskar,” she adds, sighing. 

On Caleb’s other side, Beau starts rifling through her pack. “I still have that book from the smut shop,” she says. “The one about the Cricks? Just if you want to read it again or whatever.” It comes free from her things then, the embossed lettering glinting in the faint light. 

“I, uh, I don’t actually, but thank you.” Caleb says, “It brings back… bad memories.” 

“What do you mean?” Jester asks. 

Caleb runs a hand over his face and looks around, but Nott is up ahead bickering with Fjord, and Caduceus and Yasha have fallen silently to the rear and— and at the heart of it, he is so tired of lying. So tired of running from the truths of his past. 

“Someone gave me a copy,” he says, “a schoolmate, when I was sixteen. Left it on my bed to find.” He pauses. “It was not meant as a gift.”

“So, what, it was just a dumb joke?” Beau asks. 

“No,” says Caleb, speaking slowly as he chooses his words carefully, “No, it was a message.”

“A message?” Jester echoes, voice soft. 

“A warning. That one must hold the Empire above all else.” Caleb’s voice is quiet but bitter, the thought of old soured sentiments echoing in his own mind. He thinks of Eodwulf, of Astrid. The scars on his arms twinge with dull pain. “That a soulmate means nothing in the face of loyalty. That’s why Eodwulf...” he trails off.

His companions are quiet, and it occurs to Caleb that perhaps he has never quite shaken _that_ part of the mindset. 

“That’s awful,” Jester says softly, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. 

“Yeah, they sound like assholes.” Beau agrees. 

“Ja,” Caleb nods, “assholes.” He looks at the women flanking him, at the companions leading and tailing the group, and thinks, _ja_. His loyalty still comes first. He has simply chosen new people to devote that loyalty too. 

Thoughts of soulmates and school and scars are distant after that as they make their way through the tunnels and eventually to Assarius.

Days later, below ground and in the grasp of a succubus, he experiences a brief moment of clarity. Mind coaxed to simplicity by a fiend, he feels the way he did when he was fifteen -- certain of everything and so full of conviction for an undivided loyalty. Before things got more complicated than the good of the Empire. Before his own desires caught up to him. 

And then there is burning, and things become complicated again.

They go to see the Bright Queen. Unsurprisingly, it goes poorly.

But the throne room feels... familiar, like an echo of a long forgotten dream, even as guards gather around them and begin to bind the hands of his allies. The Dens, the Bright Queen -- and the dodecahedron in the bag, the feeling of a phantom mote pulsing in his chest. 

It is a desperate bid, this, an attempt to save the lives of this motley group he has come to know as family. 

But it is a chance, a possibility, though fragmental. All the things this beacon has been in their hands before. So why not here, in its home? Why not now?

He pulls the beacon from the bag and holds it aloft. 

Subconsciously bidden, Undercommon falls from his lips. 

And then, after a long, tangled but illuminating conversation, the Bright Queen calls for her Shadowhand: “Essek-”

Caleb’s head whips to follow her gaze, his hand unconsciously reaching to rub the soulmark through his coat. 

The man who responds is-- well, devastatingly handsome, but that is not the important part. He has clever eyes, calculating and sharp, focused on the Queen as she speaks. He carries himself with the sort of confidence Bren used to carry, and Caleb hopes for the chance to look into his eyes properly, to learn what can be learned from a gaze.

Caleb knows that more things are being said, that the Queen speaks of lodgings and jobs and potential allies, but his own heartbeat is too loud in his ears for him to focus on anything but the Shadowhand.

And then Essek turns towards them, seeming intent only striding - or gliding - past them without sparing him a glance, but Caleb is too desperate in the seeking of his gaze and their eyes catch for a moment-- but it stretches long. Much longer than Caleb has ever known a moment to last, the ever-running clock in his brain ticking past too many seconds. 

Essek’s eyes widen slightly and he tilts his head for a moment, questioning in his gaze. Caleb can only look back, helpless to these stretching seconds. 

Then the drow’s wrist flicks, the movement minuscule, and time jolts back to its usual cadence.

A little shaken, Caleb follows with the rest of his family as they leave the Bright Queen’s chamber. 

Essek gives them time to collect themselves in the same waiting room from before. His companions are less certain, more skeptical, but Caleb feels more hopeful than he has in a long time. 

He is hopeful now in many things — that he might save his homeland from its own corruption, that he might tear down the institution and the mages who hurt him and his long lost brothers and sisters from so long ago, that he might — and this is the longest shot —- be able to fix the mistakes of his past. To step back in time and fate and erase the fire, erase the sin, bring things back to how simple they once were. His arms ache. 

He is hopeful, too, for something he has not thought to be hopeful of in many years — his soulmate. There shouldn’t be any certainty yet, he knows, for he does not know the second part of this Essek’s name, does not know if his own name appears on Essek’s arm. He does not know how the Kryn take to soulmates or how Essek himself might react to a Zemnian soulmate. 

But then, Caleb supposes, Bren Aldric Ermendrud is a very Zemnian name. Essek has had years to come around to the idea, and he hasn’t ruined his soulmark yet. 

Of course, his companions are not so hopeful. And he understands -- there are more important things to worry about. Namely retrieving Yeza.

Eventually, though, amidst the arguments and the concern, Jester turns to him, a spark in her eyes. “The queen called him Essek,” she says, “Do you think he’s the one on your arm?”

Yes, Caleb thinks. He shrugs instead. “Maybe,” he says, as his heart beats out a steady rhythm of _it’s-him it’s-him it’s-him,_ “But he wouldn’t know it was me anyway.”

Jester’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“His arm will say Bren, not Caleb,” he says softly, “but it doesn’t matter right now.”

“Doesn’t matter? What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Jester exclaims. 

“There will be time to sort it out later,” Caleb says, though he isn’t sure if he believes it, “For now, we worry about Nott.” 

Nott, who as he speaks is clutching at her flask while she all but hisses at Fjord.

Jester looks over at Nott as well. “Right,” she says, tail flicking thoughtfully, “Of course.” She turns back to Caleb. “But we will figure this out too.” Her smile is playful, and though her wicked grins so often spell mischief, it somehow puts Caleb at greater ease.

The walk to the Shadowshire and the Dungeon of Penance is a strange one. Caleb is near giddy with a bright hope he has not felt in years, enamoured with the beauty of this foreign city and foreign magic, and enticed by this glimpse of possibility which gleams brighter than ever. 

But when it comes to the man they are following through the city, his feelings are a little less clear. Caleb’s heart twists and thumps in a bubbling joy, so eager to meet his mate. But his mind is more careful, cautious despite the hope, uncertain about whether this is the _right_ Essek, worried about what a soulmate might mean in the precariousness of their new-found position here, and perhaps most of all, he is filled with wariness at the idea of opening himself to someone so unknown.

It is dangerous to trust, in Caleb’s experience, and he is wary to trust his new family to a powerful mage like Essek. It’s a little too reminiscent of past mistakes.

Even so, he cannot help but watch the Shadowhand. Essek is smooth, and clever, and handsome too, as he acquiesces to the cacophony of Caleb’s friends with grace. Caleb would be impressed if he wasn’t skeptical.

And then Fjord gives voice to the question Caleb has been ruminating upon himself. “What do we call you, just Shadowhand? Or is there another name you prefer?” His voice is perhaps a little more loaded than Caleb would like, as Jester too turns bright eyes in his direction, almost giggling in anticipation of this newly shared secret.

The drow sounds almost amused when he speaks; “Shadowhand Essek Thelyss.”

Caleb’s breath catches and he chokes a little, but he steadies himself quickly. It is not a surprise to the core of his being, after all, merely the confirmation of things his soul has known since its inception. 

“Essek Thelyss,” Fjord echoes. 

“Of Den Thelyss.”

Nott and Jester pipe up at the same time:  
“Oh sure, we know it well.”  
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Den Thelyss is, like, the most popular one.”

Essek is unruffled.

“That’s one of the top three, is that right?” Nott asks.

“It is indeed,” Essek smiles. He’s smooth and charming, and all the things Caleb used to be when his name was Bren and he was a prodigy, not a wash up. A knot forms in his stomach at the thought.

Nott turns to Caleb and raises her eyebrows. Caleb thinks she might be trying to communicate… approval? It’s odd, but the least of his worries.

During their silent exchange, Fjord is asking Essek how many times he has reincarnated. When Essek explains that he is a prodigy, consecuted but not yet reborn, the knot tightens in Caleb’s stomach. He thinks, then, that they are not so different, he and his soulmate, just different sides of the same coin. Essek is all that he might have been, had he stayed with the Assembly.

“It would be a great honour,” Caleb remarks quietly.

Essek meets his eyes, pausing a breath before he speaks. “It is.”

There is something here, between them, that is palpable, a thick tension Caleb is all but drowning in, consumed and wallowing and _basking_ in. It’s visceral, Essek’s presence and the weight of his eyes, flicking back to Caleb ever so often as they begin to move through the city. 

It is almost a relief to have a distraction from this burgeoning unspoken thing. 

The Dungeon of Penance is dizzying, time warping in a way not dissimilar to the way it did back in the throne room, but Caleb finds that, though it’s not easy, he’s managing to keep it mostly straight in his head.

When Fjord asks Essek if the dungeon bothers him, the drow smiles. “No,” he says and looks peculiarly at Caleb, eyes asking some unknowable question as he continues, “Time is one of my specialties.”

If Essek had not already caught Caleb’s attention, that would have. As it is, his fascination only grows. 

The rational part of him still protests, for Essek is unknown in practically everything — his political affiliations, his nature and character, his _modus operandi_ — and Caleb tries in vain to persuade the heart in his chest to slow down. 

They leave the prison, Nott’s soulmate acquired.

Caleb is tense the whole way to the Gallimaufry and the Dim’s Inn, his mind racing with questions about the area, quiet joy for Nott, concern about the Assembly, and the quiet, thrumming _yearning_ present in each beat of his heart.

The truth, though, is that Caleb knows where his own loyalties lie. Though a part of him longs to abandon pretenses and throw caution to the wind, his first loyalty and duty are to his family here. To Nott, to Jester and Beau and Yasha, to Fjord and Caduceus. Caleb has changed much since his school days, but the foundation on which he lays his principles is not so different.

Essek, he knows, has his own loyalties too, and Caleb suspects that Essek will also be reluctant to neglect them in favour of some heady unknown. 

It does not bother Caleb so much as it might have a year ago. He has learned now what true loyalty to those deserving of it is. He knows its worth.

He does, as it turns out, underestimate Essek in that respect. The mage is only too willing to pass the secrets of his own trade to Caleb, opening his spellbook to him within a week of their meeting. 

But then, Caleb supposes, Essek is also entranced by the intoxicating sensation of a soulmate, even if he doesn’t know quite why.

It’s a subject that Caleb is unsure how to broach, but Essek is curious about him too. Caleb feels the weight of his inquisitive eyes on the back of his neck as Caleb’s quill scratches new mysteries into his spellbook. 

When the subject finally comes up, they’re sitting in the library, closer to each other than they need to be, letting their elbows bump as Caleb copies from Essek’s spellbook and Essek skims through _Tusk Love_ , foisted on him by an insistent Jester. Caleb finds it hard to focus as Essek shifts beside him and their feet brush slightly. 

Essek runs a distracted hand through his tousled hair, and Caleb makes a decision. He finishes scratching the last thorny letter of Undercommon into his spellbook and then sets down his quill. 

“Why?” He asks, voice coming out rough and quiet. “Why me?”

Essek glances up at him with faint curiosity in his expression. “What do you mean?” Essek leans forward, turning his body towards Caleb and resting his forearm on the table so his hand lays just inches shy of Caleb’s. 

Caleb gestures weakly to his spellbook. “These are the ancient secrets of your people,” he says, “and I am little more than an Empire mage whose loyalty you cannot be certain of.”

Essek’s brow pinches. “Are you plotting to betray us?” He asks, patiently calm. 

“No,” Caleb says and finds that he means it, though the thought is tempered too with the deep loyalty he bears to his travelling companions. 

“Well then, there’s nothing to worry about.” Essek smiles. 

Caleb gnaws the inside of his cheek. “Couldn’t you get in trouble for this?”

Essek shrugs. “Only if you intend to be careless with it.” 

“I don’t,” Caleb says softly. 

“I thought not,” Essek says, smile warm in a way that Caleb can’t tell if it is genuine or if it is meant in manipulation. He has not trusted the smiles of strangers in some time, though he so wants to now. “Besides,” Essek continues, looking over the pages of Caleb’s spellbook in front of them, “You are a natural. It would be a waste to deprive myself of someone who might one day be a peer rather than a student.” 

He looks a moment longer, and then his brow furrows in concentration, face flickering through too many emotions — frustration, surprise, confusion — too quickly for Caleb to even begin to imagine what has caused such a reaction from his tutor. 

“ _How long have you spoken Undercommon?_ ” Essek asks after a moment, speaking in his own native tongue. It takes Caleb a moment to react as he deciphers the words in his head. 

“ _A few years,_ ” Caleb replies in the same Undercommon, though it is clumsy on his tongue, “ _but it is all book learnt._ ”

“Huh,” Essek looks perplexed. 

“ _Is it that bad?_ ” Caleb asks, and Essek laughs.

“ _No! No, it’s just, your printing reminded me of- well, never mind._ ” Essek amends. “ _Suffice to say, the precision of your pen suggests a much longer familiarity with the language._ ”

“Oh,” Caleb blinks. “ _I suppose I have always had a good memory. But what did it remind you of?_ ” 

Essek licks his lips and glances away, looking truly off-balance for the first time in their short acquaintance. “ _A mage I studied in my youth,_ ” he says eventually, “ _One of the greatest innovators of the last few centuries. I had the privilege of studying some of his personal documents, years ago._ ”

Caleb leans forward eagerly, academic interest overtaking his social reservations. “ _You studied under him? What sort of innovator?_ ”

Essek lets out a short breath of laughter. “ _No,_ ” he says, “ _No, I didn’t study under him. He died when I was a child._ ” He pauses a moment, then continues. “ _But his speciality was time. Much like mine— I’ve taken it upon myself to expand on his work._ ” 

“ _I would, if it is not too presumptuous, very much like to hear more about your work at some point,_ ” Caleb says.

Essek shifts, the line of his shoulders turning proud once more. “Perhaps,” he says, switching back to Common, as if to prove a point, “But you must understand it is sensitive work.” 

“Ja, of course,” Caleb says softly, “sensitive.” 

He realizes then that they have both turned so far in their chairs that they are facing each other properly, books forgotten on the table. The moment is heavily laden with the same unspeakable tension that has existed between them since their first acquaintance, and though Caleb has for many years disliked the feeling of being studied, he does not mind the intensity of Essek’s gaze. That realisation that he is a mystery to Essek in the same way that Essek is a mystery to him burns pleasantly warm in his chest.

Mindlessly, Caleb’s eyes shift from holding Essek’s gaze down to his spellbook, then back up to Essek. Caleb wets his lips and Essek follows the movements with his eyes. 

Caleb clears his throat and looks back to his books again, turning back towards the table reaching for the quill. 

“ _Why did you learn Undercommon?_ ” Essek asks softly, halting Caleb’s movement, and when Caleb glances back at him, Essek’s eyes are intent on his own. 

Caleb flushes a little and shifts in his seat, abruptly all too aware of where a truthful answer might lead. He dithers on whether he wants it, but his instinct to lie wins out before he can come to a real conclusion. 

“ _I found a book-_ ” he begins, but Essek’s face begins to close off at the shallowness of the answer, and Caleb stops. Unconsciously, he rests a hand on his own soulmark, hidden by sleeves and bandages. Caleb gives himself one more fleeting moment to look Essek in the eye, then makes his decision, reaching for the cuff of his shirtsleeve. 

“ _I was looking for a book,_ ” he amends, rolling his sleeve over his elbow and then beginning to unwrap his bandages. Essek watches the movement of his hand with bated breath, transfixed, and Caleb thinks that Essek must have some sense of what’s coming. He only hopes that Essek will ignore the scars for long enough to react to the intention of this moment. “ _I was looking for a book,_ ” he repeats as the bandages around his wrist loosen and Caleb pulls with more purpose now, the two purple S’s at the end of Essek’s name now revealed, “ _because it is the language of my soul mate._ ” 

The bandages come away finally, and the moment that Caleb has dreaded and longed for since he was sixteen is upon him. Essek stares, slack-jawed, and reaches out a single finger to touch. The pad of his finger drags softly across Caleb’s forearm, across his own name scrawled on skin, and Caleb finally brings himself to look back up at Essek. 

Essek’s finger pulls away, and the mage meets Caleb’s eyes as he twists his fingers into the cuff of his own sleeve. “I don’t understand-” He begins, but Caleb cuts him off. 

“I have only been Caleb Widogast for a few years. I was born Bren Aldric Ermendrud.”

“It’s you,” Essek says, voice barely audible, and he pulls up the sleeve of his own robe and then the shirt sleeve beneath.

Plain as day, in shimmering pearly white, Caleb’s old name is printed across Essek’s forearm in familiar cramped script. “It’s me,” Caleb agrees softly, transfixed on the sight of his old name. _Bren Aldric Ermendrud._ He thinks it ought to leave him disquieted, to see that old name again in so definite a form, but it is not so foreign to his tongue and mind as it was two months ago.

“I thought-” Essek begins, reaching out his hand to tangle with Caleb’s. “I thought it was the Beacon that drew me to you. I was so- so taken by you, when we first met, when you arrived in the throne room. When you pulled the Beacon out, I was so relieved to have a reason for the thing that had been growing in me since the minute I laid eyes on you.”

“Truly?” Caleb murmurs.

“Truly,” Essek says, “It didn’t- It wasn’t a perfect explanation, especially since your friend was the one holding it, but I let myself be convinced that the warmth was just from the presence of the Light of the Luxon, the feeling of being reunited with the guide of my soul once more.” He looks at their enjoined hands and Caleb follows his gaze, heart skipping in a way that he has not felt since his youth. “But this makes ever so much more sense.”

With his other hand, Caleb reaches out towards Essek’s soulmark. “Time slowed when we met,” he says, letting himself drift a slow finger across his own name on Essek’s arm, “was it you?”

Essek stills, gaze intent on Caleb, though Caleb is focused on the scrawl of _Bren Aldric Ermendrud_ across Essek’s arm. “No,” Essek says after a moment, “no, I thought that was you.” 

Caleb jerks his gaze up, brow furrowing. “Me? But I don’t know any Dunamancy, besides this.” He waves to the forgotten page in his spellbook where he was copying from Essek’s. “Time is your speciality.”

“It is,” Essek agrees, “which is why I was so certain that the twisting of threads was your doing.”

Caleb looks back to Essek’s arm, perplexed. “But I don’t have the knowledge for such things,” he says softly. 

Essek pauses, then: “When you first touched the Beacon, was it more than just the scope of all things and a mote of light? Was there familiarity?”

“Yes,” Caleb ventures after some thought, “It was like a dream I’d had since I was sixteen.” He looks to Essek, who isn’t surprised, only encouraging in his gaze as he takes Caleb’s other hand, clasping both between his. Caleb continues. “I saw myself, a dozen of me, and- and my past, the path stretching from it.” 

Essek raises Caleb’s hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “I thought so,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb across the back of Caleb’s hand. “It is rare that a soul of the Luxon finds a mate in a soul not also consecuted.”

Caleb pulls back, stammering. “You mean- you think that I-?”

Essek’s gaze is intense. “Yes,” he says, “I am almost certain. The Beacon does not call to everyone.”

“Oh.” Caleb stares into the middle distance, mind curiously dazed and still.

“We’ll speak to the Skysybil.” Essek’s hand finds its way to Caleb’s jaw then, holding him gently. Caleb stills, though his heart is hammering. Essek wets his lips and Caleb finds himself tracking the movement.

“Can I kiss you?” Essek asks softly.

Despite his better sense, his rational mind that still questions Essek’s every move, Caleb nods minutely.

At the affirmation, Essek surges forward and their lips meet, and it feels like the culmination of everything. 

In his chest, Caleb’s soul sings.

After an all too brief moment, Caleb pulls back. “But what does this mean, for us?” he asks, voice rough. 

Essek traces his thumb along the line of Caleb’s jaw. “It means whatever you want it to mean,” he says, voice low and laden with meaning which Caleb resists the urge to unpack, intent in his question.

“No,” Caleb says, shifting slightly away from Essek, making careful eye contact. “What does it mean here? For you, as a member of the Dynasty?”

“Oh,” Essek pauses, and sits up straighter, increasing the distance between them. Caleb leans closer despite himself. Essek continues slowly, “It means— It really does mean whatever you want it to mean here and now, but it also means that my soul will long for yours in every lifetime. That we are bound, inextricably, until time itself ends.”

Caleb’s breath catches, but he pushes past it, determined for a better answer. “But what do you want from this?”

Essek glances down, then back at Caleb, eyes more vulnerable than Caleb has ever seen them. “I want everything with you,” Essek says softly, “but I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give.”

Caleb pauses. “My loyalty is to my companions first,” he says after a long moment. “It has been earned through trial and hardship, and I have not known those things with you.”

Essek regards him with intent eyes, though Caleb thinks they’re more closed off than before. “I would expect nothing less,” Essek says evenly. 

“As I expect your first loyalty is to the Dynasty,” Caleb continues. “I could never begrudge you that.” 

That makes Essek pause. “Right,” he says, straightening up fully and pulling away till only their fingertips and knees are touching, “Of course.” He clears his throat and looks away. 

Caleb’s brow furrows. “Is something wrong?” 

Essek’s eyes dart back to his. “You had cruel teachers in your youth, didn’t you?”

Caleb freezes. “I suppose so, ja,” he says, “but… I have not lived this long by failing to apply some of their teachings.”

Essek ducks his head down again but lets his hand meander forward to tangle their fingers together once more. “Of course,” he says, “I cannot fault you for that. Only…” he trails off, looking up to meet Caleb’s eyes once again. “I trust you,” he says, voice low but firm. “I haven’t known you long, Caleb, or Bren, or whoever you choose to be next month or the month after. But I trust you. I know you will think it foolish,” Caleb opens his mouth to respond, but Essek continues before Caleb can speak, “And I have certainly not learned the lessons you did, but one cannot be a fool to rise to the office of Shadowhand. My trust is hard-earned, for most. But my soul cannot help but draw me to yours.” 

“That does not mean you must surrender to it,” Caleb rushes out, and Essek interrupts him. 

“The Luxon holds my soul, Bren,” he says, and Caleb shivers at the use of his old name, feels it in the parts of his soul that ache, “And it will not guide me wrong. I am not in the habit of denying where I am called.” Essek covers Caleb’s hand with his own now, comforting. “I will not ask the same of you. But you have my trust. You have my loyalty, though perhaps not yet the highest part of it.” 

Caleb fights to swallow, a lump rising in his throat. It is overwhelming to be faced with all the things he himself is too afraid to give. Eventually, he chokes out, “Thank you.” A pause. “I will do my best to be deserving of it.”

Essek smiles again, finally. “There is time,” he says, slow and sure, “in this life and the next, and every one after.”

And in spite of himself, Caleb finds it is easy to believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> eyy thanks for reading hmu on my critical role sideblog widogays on tumblr if u want


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